43 CEO Nuggets on Brand, Growth, Winning & More [CEO Bookshelf]

Week of April 28, 2019

You’ve heard you are what you eat, well we believe that you are what you read. Teach a CEO presents lessons from our CEO Bookshelf on how you can improve and grow your venture. We have taken gems or nuggets from our library and provide them for CEO’s, startups, entrepreneurs and business owners. Get your copy of these books and more at CEO Books.

Company Growth – 8 Nuggets

The future looks nothing like the past, and relying on old expertise, old data, old insights will only ensure expensive failure. So instead of sinking large amounts of capital into a select few new ventures, often called rack-and-stack planning, companies need to embrace the power portfolios–placing dozens of small bets, using the tools of discovery and validation to reveal which ones will be successful. Angel and venture capitalists do this innately, and large enterprises can adopt their playbook. This is fundamentally about learning velocity, and whoever learns the fasts wins. (New to Big)

Growth leaders must stop focusing their energies on incremental growth through endless optimization, and instead leverage their companies’ assets to build new offerings, move into new markets, and create next-generation solutions. When a CEO with that growth mindset takes the wheel at a legacy company, dazzling change suddenly becomes possible. (New to Big)

The first step toward becoming an ambidextrous leader? Setting the permissions and boundaries for their entrepreneurial teams to work differently. Giving them permission to be wrong. Permission to question established wisdom. Permission to disrupt core businesses. Permission to run experiments and invalidate assumptions and move fast. Permission to behave like a startup even while they’re embedded in a mammoth, hundred-year-old enterprised. (New to Big)

To foster New to Big growth you must learn how to become an operator and a creator. You have to become ambidextrous. (New to Big)

Startups know that the correct place to start is not with an answer but with a question. (New to Big)

The best predictor of enterprise new to big success has been something founders learn through the unrelenting grind of launching and scaling their startups: It all starts with the CEO’s mindset. (New to Big)

Growth is radically different. Growth is urgent. Growth is grounded in commercial truth. Growth does not adhere to invisible permissions or restrictions. Growth is in the culture, or it’s not. When you’re honest with yourself, can you really say you’re playing to win? (New to Big)

You can, however, be a refounder. Refounders are leaders who–despite not having created their companies from scratch–adopt the Day One mind-sets and model of founders. (New to Big)

Personal & Professional Growth – 6 Nuggets

When living from your hear, you can still visit the headspace when necessary to work out the details, but with true leadership from the heart, your understanding of everything deepens. Finally, delivering excellence is ultimately about being in service to others. (The BUILD Framework®)

Once you know whom you need to build relationships with, you can identify why it is important to build relationships with those specific people. It is only by asking why that you’ll truly understand these relationships. If we don’t’ ask why, we make arbitrary, rather than intentional, decisions about the people around us. (The BUILD Framework®)

Implementing strategies is important, but so is having some flexibility to adapt those strategies when necessary. (The BUILD Framework®)

If you want a culture of embracing openness and working together, then it’s up to you to demonstrate those behaviors. Because you are always leading. You’re always influencing. You can’t opt out of leadership. (The BUILD Framework®)

When your heart is open and you are connected, you can deliver excellence on every level by ensuring that you can feel it, inspecting what you expect, remembering the value of the vibe, and knowing that excellence is perpetual. (The BUILD Framework®)

Digital Policy – 6 Nuggets

Digital policies help you take full advantage of the opportunities available in the digital world while reducing the risks associated with online missteps. (The Power of Digital Policy)

Another reason small businesses need digital policies is because employees tend to wear multiple hats, tackling projects that fall outside of their areas of expertise simply because somebody has to do it. Having policies that outline the who, what, where, when, how and why result in a more consistent—and more reliable–digital presence. (The Power of Digital Policy)

…think about for an ongoing policy program in each of the following areas: Accessibility, cooking and tracking policy, copyrights and protections, data breach response, data privacy, email marketing and spam, emergency response and business continuity, online piracy. (The Power of Digital Policy)

Digital policies are not a project. The problem with thinking about them as a project is that oftentimes leadership and those working on digital initiatives expect that if something is a project, it is a one-and done-deal. (The Power of Digital Policy)

Winning – 10 Nuggets

A success mindset is simple to describe, but it’s not easy to do. It takes some work. First, you have to believe that you have the power to make things better. Then you have to take action and change the way you see your past. (Choose to Win)

Success and significance are stepping0stones on the way to legacy. When legacy is your why, the how and the what come to life. (Choose to Win)

The fastest way to success is to replace bad habits with good habits. (Choose to Win)

The wheel is a simple yet profound way to get a snapshot of how well you are doing in life. Every dream or goal you have and every struggle you are dealing with will fall into one of these seven areas of life: mental, spiritual, physical, family, financial, personal, and career. (Choose to Win)

In order to choose to win, you need to choose the ownership mentality when it comes to your attitude, effort, and skill. (Choose to Win)

One thing is certain: if you never take the first step, you will never take the second step. (Choose to Win)

Living a life of purpose is a choice. I believe we all created on purpose and for a purpose. (Choose to Win)

Brand – 10 Nuggets

Brand: The crux of commerce itself–the value your business brings that gives it the right to exist. Defining and operationalizing your brand formulates the most direct route for your business to create, sustain and scale value. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

When you create a brand strategy deliberately and carefully, you define the business’s North Star that will clearly guide every decision you make and every decision your team makes. Brand forms your most durable competitive advantage. It lights your way to creating purpose, value, and scale. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

A worthy business is one that creates value for customers, employees, and owners. The value you bring your customer translates to value for the rest of your business’s stakeholders. Brand is the articulation of the value. It identifies why customers should part with their hard-earned money in exchange for your offering. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

…brand is good defense. Brand protects what you have, helping you to survive and defend, as well as thrive and grow. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

Startup leaders often forego brand strategy because they prefer to wait and do it “right.” Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The right way to develop a brand strategy early in the business may be to do so in a quick-and-dirty way, to be revisited later. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

Ironclad brand strategies reflect the emotional life of their target customer. They honor that through everything they deliver. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

Brand is the crystallization and delivery of your businesses’ value to customers. If you lead a business, you can and must gain this clarity. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

By making your promise more and more relevant and meaningful to customers, you deepen customer love. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

Brand is the largest driver of value creation. It is good for your customer. It is good for your business. In fact, it makes up the very fibers of the relationship between your customer and your business. (Forging An Ironclad Brand)

Human Nature – 3 Nuggets

Crumpler’s don’t ‘hate” systems or process. They will buck systems and process (for themselves generally), but they can also find freedom and comfort when there are some systems in place that allow them ot have more freedom for other things. (Folder or Crumpler)

No one is 100% folder or 100% Crumpler. There is a Folder Crumpler Continuum which means that you will have some traits of both but you ARE predominantly one or the other. (Folder or Crumpler)

It’s incredibly important to understand the needs, motivation, and nature of the people we interact with. (Folder or Crumpler)

Books on The CEO Bookshelf

New to Big: Serial entrepreneurs David Kidder and Christina Wallace reveal their revolutionary playbook for igniting growth inside established companies. Most established companies face a key survival challenge, says David Kidder, CEO of Bionic, lifelong entrepreneur, and angel investor in more than 30 start-ups: operational efficiency and outdated bureaucracy are at war with new growth. Legacy companies are skilled at growing big businesses into even bigger ones. But they are less adept at discovering new opportunities and turning them into big businesses, the way entrepreneurs and early-stage investors must. In New to Big, Kidder and Wallace reveal their proprietary blueprint for installing a permanent growth capability inside any company – the Growth Operating System. The Growth OS borrows the best tools, systems, and mind-sets from entrepreneurship and venture capital and adapts them for established organizations, leveraging these two distinct skills as a form of management for building in a future that is uncertain. By focusing on what consumers do rather than what they say, celebrating productive failure, embracing a portfolio approach, and learning from the outside in, Kidder and Wallace argue any company can go on offense and win the future. This isn’t about a one-off innovation moonshot. It’s about building a permanent ladder to the moon.

The BUILD Framework®: Do you feel a bit overwhelmed or unmotivated? Is passion or purpose missing from your daily routine? Do you want to reignite the drive to achieve personal and professional success? In The BUILD Framework®, Certified High Performance Coach™ John Peitzman (JP) offers you a blueprint to build a better future, by showing you how to: Increase productivity for your life, your business, and your team; Implement structure for greater peace, clarity, and balance; Have the courage, conviction, and ability to go after your dreams; Create a lasting, heartfelt transformation from the inside out. This book is not hard work. If you want to overcomplicate things, you can probably handle that on your own. But if you want a simple, straightforward, commonsense approach—with a framework that changes both your business and your personal life—then this book is for you. When you reconstruct your life with The BUILD Framework®, your success has no limits!

The Power of Digital Policy: Whether you are an entrepreneur or a part of a large enterprise, getting digital right today is critical. But how do you create or maintain policies that empower employees, comply with regulations – such as GDPR and CCPA – reduce social media gaffes and, simultaneously, unlock opportunity?This handbook helps you to unleash the Power of Digital Policy with field-tested, actionable guidance to minimize risk and maximize opportunity. Sound digital policies help to manage issues like financial risk from data breaches, but they can also streamline operations, reduce redundant content and produce value. Whether you are in marketing, legal, finance, IT or HR, the worst thing to do is to watch from the sidelines. Regardless of the industry or your company’s size or stage of policy maturity, this step-by-step roadmap meets you where you are and helps to take your organization where it needs to be.

Choose to Win: Transform Your Life, One Simple Choice at a Time: The secret to winning at life is one good choice at a time. Are you frustrated with your job, career, or relationships? Are you unsure if what you are doing right now in your life is the right thing? In this revolutionary new book, success and motivation expert Tom Ziglar shares the good news that you can change and that, in fact, you can win at life. Choose to Win shows you how to achieve massive change without massive upset. It all starts with identifying your why, which reveals the how that opens multiple doors of what. His revolutionary plan guides you through making one small choice at a time through a sequence of easy-to-follow steps in seven key areas: mental, spiritual, physical, family, finance, personal, and career. Ziglar also helps you identify the life-killing, unhealthy habits that cause misery, dissatisfaction, and lack of success—and, more importantly, how to implement positive habits through the trinity of transformation: desire, hope, and grit. The result is a more productive, more fulfilling, and more meaningful life. You can take control of your destiny and leave the lasting legacy you’ve dreamed about and deserve. You simply need to choose to do so.

Forging An Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide: Good brand is just good business. Brand is the intentional leader’s North Star. It helps us engage customers and employees, unleash our competitive advantage, and fuel enduring growth. And yet, despite this power, brand is grossly underused. Few leaders leverage brand fully, believing (wrongly) that brand is squishy and elusive. But when a tool this vital is dismissed, the business suffers mightily. The good news is that all leaders can ignite brand to create value. Lindsay Pedersen deconstructs what brand is and why it is indispensable for leaders. Then she shares her step-by-step process to tame the infinite possibilities and pinpoint a brand positioning that is true and robust—ironclad—to unlock the most value. In this book, learn how to…Leverage brand as a strategic platform for growing with purpose; Lead more effectively with brand as your North Star; Use brand to excite customers and employees; Identify your Uncommon Denominator and Benefit Ladder; Follow the principles of storytelling to generate business growth. Brand is sorely underutilized. When you ignore it or use it only superficially, you forgo your most sustainable competitive advantage. It’s time to start using brand as your North Star—it’s time to make your brand ironclad.

Folder or Crumpler: Wipe Away Your Misconceptions, Understand Your Strengths & Get the Most From Others: “Some of you people out there just wad it up and have at it. Others out there take careful time to fold it and go about their ‘business’ as methodically as possible.” This book is about my theory that there are two types of people in the world; Folders and Crumplers. It’s a reference to how you might actually use toilet paper, but in here we explore how this behavior applies directly to defining the different natures of a Folder vs. Crumpler. The goal of this book is to help you understand the two personas so that you can identify and embrace who they are. Once you understand your own nature and subsequently how others around you “roll”, you will understand how Folders and Crumplers can cause friction for each other or can create amazing success together. Everyone is either a Folder or a Crumpler. You probably aren’t 100% one or the other but you are definitely on the FC Continuum. Follow me on my crazy path and learn how to better enjoy yourself and those around you.

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